


the discovery of the unknown (is nothing to tell the folks back home)

by Iodine



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (misery trio?), Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Misery, Mystery Trio, no happy ending, spoilers for the pines family/the author/fiddleford's past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-10 21:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4407485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iodine/pseuds/Iodine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the rise and fall of the mystery trio.</p>
<p>Stanley had never expected to be reunited with his brother again in this sleepy, creepy little town, but there he is (to their mutual surprise), odd little friend in tow, ready to hear everything Stan knows about the goings-on of Gravity Falls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. close your eyes and walk, your feet will take you home

**Author's Note:**

> i have NO idea what i'm doing 8) (title a slightly fudged line from la roux's 'colourless colour')

Stanley Pines had been just about everywhere in North and South America on his travels, his 'solo search for treasure' as he privately thought of it, bittersweetly. Life had a way of twisting your dreams on you, and Stanley's dreams of sailing the world with his brother, searching for treasure and adventure, had been no exception to life's cruelties. He ended up alone, the sailing had become cruising in his increasingly beat-up car, the treasure was swindled from suckers, and the adventure was running from town to town, different names and backstories and zany ideas on the fly.

 

Seven years—seven _years_ —of this, and he was still no closer to his goal than he was when he'd started, and he couldn't help thinking that this—all of this, the assumed identities, running from the law, travelling all across the Americas, the shitty scams and the flea-ridden sketchy motels, _all_ of it—would have been worth it if he wasn't alone, if Stanford had been with him.

 

He'd kept tabs on Stanford—it was hard not to. The kid was a literal _genius_ , making splashes all over America, always in the papers for coming up with some stunning, over-the-top but brilliant ideas, but in those seven years, never once did Ford try to contact him. Not that it would've been easy, mind, what with Stanley's constant moving around and switching of identities, but his brother was a _literal genius_ , and he _knew_ Stanley, he could've come up with _something_ , some way to find him.

 

But even as bitter as he was, Stan couldn't stay mad, couldn't begrudge his brother his dreams, he loved him too much to wish him ill.  
It still stung though, the knowledge every time he was on the run, sleeping in ratty beds or the back of his car, nothing to his name but forty dollars and the shirt on his back, that Stanford was high and dry somewhere, Stanley the last thing on his mind.

 

Of course, it wasn't all bad. His travels had taken him in a winding loop all across America, dipping down into Mexico, and even as far south as Argentina and Brazil.  
Things had gotten pretty hot on his last few set of scams in Michigan, when a rich couple had caught wise and damn near gotten him arrested. He'd escaped by the skin of his teeth and with nowhere else to really go, he'd headed north to—he shuddered—eugh, _Canada_. The place was _weird_ and too damn friendly. Working his way north up Ontario, and then west across the prairies, he'd had some decent success in Alberta and BC, but it wasn't the same up there. What was the point of swindling suckers out of their hard-earned dough only for them to come back and apologize about it like it was _their_ fault? Nah, Canada wasn't for him, it was sucking all the fun and thrill out of what he'd learnt to appreciate about a fast getaway. So back to the States it was.

 

Back in Washington, what should've been his triumphant return to the States was cut a little short when he may have overreached with his latest scheme and had to skedaddle a little faster than usual. In the back room of a dingy little bar he was he was hiding out in, he found a newspaper cut-out pasted to a bathroom stall advertising a hole-in-the-wall little town called 'Gravity Falls' with not much too it but a lumber mill and a recently failed mining operation. Seemed like a real pit, an already small place struck by a recent downturn. Maybe not somewhere he'd make a lot of cash, but at least a place to lay low for a while while the heat on him cooled off. So Gravity Falls it was.

 

He made a good fistful more of cash at the same little bar, 'taking over' for the bartender who'd stepped into the back and left his station unattended. He overcharged the next few guys for drinks, took the cash, and was out the door before anyone was the wiser.

 

* * *

 

Gravity Falls was just about what he expected; a dinky little town with not much to it. They'd had a mining operation up until the last few years when it'd all dried up and gone south, so there were plenty of abandoned buildings for him to squat in, places left behind when the money'd stopped flowing and the miners had cut and run. Now, it was mostly a few small businesses and their families, and the lumberjacks who'd still had a living to make in the area. Just a bunch of run-down people who'd pay no mind to a new face who kept to himself. In other words, it was _perfect_.

 

He'd gotten to work setting himself up in an abandoned trailer near the outskirts, tucked neatly into the woods and out of sight. Not quite a castle, but good enough for now, especially since he didn't have to pay rent.

 

The diner was nice enough, run by some lady with her daughter waitressing. Susan, her name was, nice girl, and she was sweet on Stanley and sometimes let him have his plates on the house.

 

"Just don't tell my ma." she giggled. All in all, it wasn't the worst place he'd ever rested his feet.

 

It was after a few weeks here that the dopey residents of this sleepy little town had gotten to know his face and started to open up to him a little. He was Stan—just Stan— to them, and for the most part, they'd all just wave a little hello to him as they passed, but sometimes the couple at the Dusk 2 Dawn convenience store would rope him into some gossip, or he'd overhear some at the diner.  
It was one such little occurrence of eavesdropping at said diner that had led him to a juicy little tidbit and a new plan forming in his brain.

 

The lumberjacks had been in for lunch one afternoon and Stan had listened in on their conversation—not hard, considering how loud they all were—and overheard some interesting things about monsters in the woods.  
Strange screeches and growls coming from the old abandoned mine shafts, hairy giants living in the mountains, footprints in the mud the size of a car. Some kind of gangly shadow-monster called the 'hide-behind' that, well, hid behind stuff. (He couldn't make this shit up if he tried).  
Susan came over to top off his coffee and noticed that he was listening in, and there must've been something skeptical and curious on his face, because she spoke up.

 

"It's true, you know. All sorts'a weird things happening all over town. Just this last month, everyone's little garden gnomes've all gone missin'! Ma says it's the work of teenage vandals, but ol' mister Durland says he saw 'em get right up and walk away all on their own one night! Weird huh? But stuff like this is always happenin' in lil ol' Gravity Falls." and she walked away humming.

 

_Was it now?_ Stanley thought to himself.

  
He finished his coffee and left a nice tip for once. He had an idea forming, and a good feeling that some money'd be coming his way real soon.

 

* * *


	2. a plan well executed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the man with a plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (it's stan, stan's the man with a plan)

The Gravity Falls library was a small, wooden affair with one floor and a basement and not much to it by way of actual books. Mostly a lot of dry local history types, some family records. That didn't matter, what he was here for were the newspapers, and little towns like this _always_ kept records.

 

The lady at the front desk was someone he'd recognized from about town, the matronly type, a sharp-eyed buzzard watching over these dusty books like they were precious gems. When he asked about the newspaper archives, she had regarded him with suspicion, but led him down a set of stone steps and into the basement.

 

"No drinks or food of any kind down here. Treat the papers with care not to damage them, or I'll know, mister Pines, _I'll know_." and then she walked backwards up the steps, glaring him down the whole time.

 

  
He shuddered. Creepy old coot. And how had she known his name, his real name? He was pretty sure he hadn't slipped up and given it by accident. No matter, if things all went according to plan, this would be his greatest scam yet, and it would be _legal_.  
Mostly.

 

* * *

 

There was no clock in the musty, windowless basement of the Gravity Falls library, so he was more than a little surprised when he came up for air to find that _three hours_ had passed. He had taken down a notebook with him to scribble down ideas and in those short few hours, had nearly filled it.

 

"Did you find everything you were looking for, mister Pines?"

 

  
Stanley nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd forgotten about the librarian, and there she was, perched at her high stool like some kind of gargoyle in horn-rimmed glasses.  
He rubbed the back of his neck to rid it of the goosebumps he'd gotten from the startle.

 

"Uh, yeah. mostly."

 

"And what, may I ask, was it that you were looking for?"

 

"Some history-type stuff about the town. The lore and whatnot, you know."

 

  
Something in her weathered face softened and her eyes sparked.

 

"Gravity Falls has quite a rich history, you know." she stood from her perch at the desk and shuffled over to the shelves. "It may not be a town 'on the map' as you say, but it's had more than it's fair share of... interesting occurrences." She came to a stop in from of some dusty shelves at the back and took two books of them that looked like they hadn't been checked out in a hundred years, and blew the dust and cobwebs off of them.

 

"Yes, this may be just what you're looking for."

 

Stan examined the titles on his walk back to the front. _'Gravity Falls: Anomalies and Cryptids'_ , and _'East Oregon Mythology Collection'_. They seemed like a load of crock.  
_Exactly_ what he was looking for.

 

A sharp "mister Pines!" stopped him before the door, and when he looked back, the librarian was once again at her desk, tapping a thick checkout book with a ruler.  
And that was how Stanley Pines had gotten his first library card.

 

* * *

 

Back at his trailer, Stanley got to work. The books and the notes he'd taken from the newspaper were rife with odd occurrences and strange beings, unexplained events and lots of mention of 'the supernatural'.  
Honestly, it was all probably cockamamie cooked up by the bored residents of a boring little town; something interesting to sell the papers because "local man grows decent sized pumpkins" and news about the local rich family and births/deaths weren't exactly riveting front page stories. Giant gopher-snake hybrids burrowing under the town and causing earthquakes and eating garbage, though, that shit sold like hotcakes here.

 

Stan's vague ideas began to take shape. He sketched up some designs based on 'eye witness testimonies' and blurry, low quality pics printed in the news. It wasn't hard to find a taxidermist around here, not in the middle of heavily-forested hunting areas, and with a little careful cutting and gluing, he had his own slowly growing collection of 'monsters'.

 

Stan decided to start slow, create a buzz. He had the perfect con in mind and wanted it to go off without a hitch, so he used his hand-crafted abominations to stage some blurry pics of his own, and submitted them to the local newspaper. A few days later, he took so more, clearer ones this time, and again submitted them. The rest was a matter of him hitting the diner and cooking up the stories of how he had gotten said pics; walks through the woods where he was accosted by the gopher-snake, (gake? snopher? he would have to decide later), the flying fish caught in the lake, the tiny clothes found in the woods, no doubt belonging to the gnomes.

 

Soon enough, these people were eating out of his hand, enthralled by his bullshit tales of the weird and wild. In the following week, he set up a tent in the empty lot next to his 'borrowed' trailer and put up his collection of cobbled-together monsters and made-up mysteries, and then promised the townsfolk they could see them all, for a neat little five—no, _ten_ dollars.

 

A few days later and after the grand opening of the 'Tent-O-Weird' (eh, he'd have to work on the name), and Stan was holding the first cool two-hundred that he'd made in Gravity Falls, and the best part was that no one was even _mad_ at him. All the townsfolk had shown up and _oohed_ and _ahhed_ over his presentations and not-a-one had left with a scowl on their face.

 

The next day was _even better_ , because word had gotten around and Susan had been his best advertisement yet (and free, to boot) telling all the people passing through about Stans little setup. Gravity Falls might not've been a big place on its own, but it got a good amount of traffic passing through from California and Canada, and by the end of the second week, Stanley had made a solid thousand bucks.

 

He couldn't've been more delighted, fingering through his fat stack of benjamins and grinning like a fool. The townspeople not only payed to see his hair-brained ideas, but they were _actively encouraging_  him. Susan told him she'd served more than a couple people already who'd only come to Gravity Falls just to see Stan's little collection. Word of mouth had piqued the interest of a few mystery seekers from the surrounding areas, and as long as he kept up making new attractions, he stood to keep making money as well.

 

Things were finally looking up for Stanley Pines.

 

* * *

 

 

Over the next few months, Stan really raked in the cash. News of his tent had spread fairly quickly by word-of-mouth, aided along by some positive reviews from some mystery-hunter type groups, and from Susan dropping word about him to every passer-through who stopped in for her coffee.

 

Stan worked on building up quite the collection of weird shit he could cycle through, and put his scam-artists charm to work spinning tales. To make even _more_ cash, he started selling rabbits-foot key-chains, fake 4 (and 5, and 6, and 7...) leaf clovers, made of regular clovers plucked and laminated to look real, and other easily made junk. There were also a bunch of twigs bundled with twine into a vaguely human shape, which he sold as charms and voodoo dolls he found in the woods, left by the local witch coven.

 

Things were great—no, better than great—things were _fantastic_ for Stan. For the first time in his life he had a pace to live, a stable job that made use of his talents and he actually enjoyed, and most importantly, _made him money_.

  
Gravity Falls was shaping up to be his saving grace.

 

* * *

 


	3. o brother, we meet again

It was nearly a full year that Stanley had spent in Gravity Falls.

His trailer had been upgraded to an apartment over the auto-shop, his single Tent-O-Weirdness was now _three_ tents, and the trailer now his gift-shop. There were signs all over town and the surrounding area pointing towards his setup, and ads as far as the next states over for his shop. Gravity Falls was in the makings of a regular tourist trap, (almost single-handedly his doing), and the townspeople _loved_ him for it. There was more money coming in for him and all the other local business with people buzzing about the supernatural, and he didn't even have to come up with new ideas on his own anymore; people were doing that for him.   
Every day there were weird new sightings of the unexplained; perfectly circular rings of trees cut in the dead of night that the lumberjacks insisted weren't their doing. Giant 6 ton logging equipment somehow moved overnight with no tracks or explanation. Strange apparitions over the lake accompanied by eerie wailing. Unexplained lights in the sky and missing gargoyles, dug-up graves and haunted water-wells. The money was practically making itself.

 

It was on one of Stan's trips out for supplies that he learned of some kind of government science-types mooching around the woods, some kind of minor but official look into all the claims of the supernatural and anomalies of Gravity Falls. _That_  made Stan a little nervous. The last thing he needed or wanted was some feds sniffing around and figuring out who he was and chasing him out of town, not when he had such a good thing going here.   
But he had used his real name here, Stanley Pines, and not one of the dozens of aliases he used for cons before, and those were all the names he was wanted under. He may have done a lot of things wrong, but not using his real name in his cons from the get-go was smart. As long as he played his cards right, things would all blow over soon enough when they found out all the weird things surrounding Gravity Falls were fabricated.

 

* * *

 

 

Except things _didn't_ blow over. Stan heard from the Duskertons that there were a couple of scientists who had decided to set up shop in the woods.

 

"Real nice couple'a fellers." Ma Duskerton told him while she bagged his groceries, "Didn't see much of the bigger one, but the smaller one was very fancy, very polite. Had that southern charm about him, didn't he Pa?"

 

"Indeed he did. Yes, a friendly couple of nice young folks. You might even get to meet them soon! Seemed mighty interested in oddities and me and Ma here told 'em, we said, 'get yourselves over to the Tent-O-Weird if'n you're interested in the odd'. Now that'll be $15.29, Stan."

 

Stan thought to himself as he counted his change. Did he _want_  these two newcomers to visit his tent? This could mean trouble. While it was unlikely if they were the science types that they'd recognize him as a wanted man, their trained eyes might spot all his fakes and try to put him out of business out of spite for making them come all the way out to this podunk little town on false claims of the supernatural. While he was sure everyone with an ounce of common sense new his wares were phony as a three-dollar bill, the people of Gravity Falls also had a knack for being the dumbest people he'd ever known, and he wasn't gonna leave town if he didn't have to. On the other hand, if they showed up and saw everything weird about Gravity Falls was a sham, maybe they'd leave.

He'd think of something.

 

* * *

 

 

He didn't have to wait long for the newcomers to show up. They came the following week on a Monday, a blustery October day. Stan was busy incorporating Halloween things into his usual routine—hoping to get more money from the holiday—when a car pulled up and out stepped a couple guys with clipboards and briefcases. He couldn't see the bigger one, bundled up as he was in his coat, scarf, and hat, but he stayed outside to examine the signs and the rocks growing "crystals" and weird mushrooms out front. The other one, thin and squirrelly looking with thick coke-bottle glasses and messy brown hair, stepped into the shop.

 

"Be with you in a minute!" Stan called, putting the finishing touches on his latest; a 'possessed' jack-o-lantern that spewed pumpkin guts and belched fire from its top, and a centaur skeleton with bones he'd lifted from someone elses Halloween decorations.

 

"No worries! Pay me no mind, I'll just take a gander around, shall I?" Southern accent, that must be the one Ma and Pa Duskerton were telling him about. Stanley watched him from the reflection in the window. He didn't _seem_  the police type, he was too small and nerdy. Stan could hear him quietly humming away to himself while he looked over all the trailers oddities.

 

"Quite the collection of interesting artifacts you have here, mister—?" the man asked, without looking up from his perusing.

 

"Pines. Stan Pines. And yeah, it is. Lot of weird stuff in the woods around here, not hard to find things to display."

 

"Beg pardon?" he sounded surprised. Stan supposed he couldn't've been very good at researching if he didn't already know about the myriad of unexplained things around here. Or maybe he just hand't heard him right. Stan came out from the back room to repeat himself.

 

"I said, there's a lot of odd things around here." But something was wrong. The little guy took one look at him and turned white as a sheet.

 

"S-Stan? _Stan_? but how—" and cast a terrified look out the front window to his partner, who was still taking notes out front.

 

Shit. _Shit_. The little weasel _had_ recognized him— _fuck_ ing feds—and he was between Stan and the door. He had to think up something quick and get out of here before—

 

" _Stanford_!" the scientist hollered and—wait, what? Stan _ford_?   
The man outside looked up sharply and jogged to the trailer.

 

"Fiddleford, what? What is it?" The scientist—Fiddleford—pointed one shaking hand at Stanley, and everything came crashing to a halt, because Stanley _recognized_ that voice, saw behind the scarf that had come untucked at some point outside, and Stanley was left staring into a very familiar face. His _own_ face, even.   
It was his brother, Stanford Pines, in the flesh.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls forgive me for my sin of cliffhanging


	4. familial reunion in warbling g minor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ all the comments so far: thank u so much ;;; you're all great ♥

" _Stanford_?!"

 

"Stanley!?"

 

"What the hell are you doing here?"

 

"I could ask you the same thing!"

 

"I _live_ here, what's _your_  excuse?"

 

"I'm getting paid to _work_ here!"

 

"Hold on," Fiddleford interrupted, "What exactly is going on here? They said this place was anomalous, but doppelgangers?"

 

"He's not my doppelganger, he's my twin brother." Stanford answered.

 

"You never told me you had a twin brother."

 

"Oh that's just great, eight years and you forgot all about me, huh?" Stanley shouted.  
It _stung_ , lord did it ever. Sure, he never told anyone _he_  had a twin either, but he had good reason not to; he was a wanted man, a convict who didn't need his family getting in trouble because of his misdeeds. The less people knew about him, the better. But Ford...

 

"Stan, that's not—it isn't like that."

 

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you tell me, 'what it's like' then, hmm?"

 

"It's just. I thought you..." Stanford floundered for words, completely caught off guard. He took a step forward, and there was something soft and amazed on his face. "I can't believe you're really here."

 

Stanley couldn't stay mad, no matter how hurt he felt or upset he was, he just couldn't. This was his brother, his _twin_. He'd gone without him for almost a _decade_  now, and the entire time had been like missing the most important part of himself, and now here he was, right in front of him for the first time in _so long_. He took his own tentative step forward and that seemed to unfreeze Stanford, who launched himself at Stan and into the tightest hug Stanley had ever gotten, and suddenly he was _home_.  
 _God_ he had missed this, missed it more than he had ever realized or been willing to admit to himself. Stanford fit against him like the perfect puzzle piece even despite his bulky coat. He could feel tears on his neck and knew he himself was misty-eyed as well. It'd been _years_  since he'd cried, and here he was, in front of an uncomfortable looking stranger to boot.

 

The hug must've gone on for a bit too long, because Fiddleford quietly excused himself to the other end of the trailer and politely faked being interested in the skull-badger display.  
When Stan finally pulled back from the hug, he didn't even have a chance to get a word out before Stanford was hauling back and socking him right in the jaw, hard enough to send him stumbling back into the cash counter.

 

"What the _hell_ —?!"

 

" _That_  was for never calling! Eight years away and you never so much as sent a goddamned postcard! I thought you were _dead_ , Stanley! Do you _know_  how distraught Ma was!? She called all over looking for you, and then we _found_  you on the back of some newspapers most wanted list! A criminal Stanley, a _criminal_." Ford spat the last word out in three accusatory syllables, looking angry as hell. Each word brought him a step forward until he was looming over Stanley and jabbing him in the jest with a finger.

And then his face softened and his voice lowered."Why didn't you ever call, brother? Why didn't you ask for help?"

 

Stanley looked up at his brother, hand on his own aching jaw, and was at a loss for words.

 

"I. I... I thought you _hated_  me." he admitted. "The—the thing with your machine, and when dad kicked me out, everyone... I thought nobody wanted me around."

 

Stanford's face crumpled.

 

"I was mad, yeah, But _hate_  you? I could never hate you." and he pulled Stanley up into another tight hug. "I missed you _so much_." he whispered against Stanley's shoulder.

 

"Me too. Me too."

 

* * *

 

 

After their sudden and unexpected reunion, Stanford introduced him to his friend and science partner, Fiddleford McGucket, who was little shy, but just as polite as the Duskertons had mentioned.

 

Stan closed up shop for the day and took them both to the diner to catch up, and he was sure by the way Susan had gaped and stared that the news of someone who looked identical to him was sure to spread like wildfire and be tomorrows hot topic. He could probably use all this to his advantage and spin some tale about shape-shifters, an alternate reality version of himself, or a duplicator or something, but right now, he couldn't really care less about the scam. Instead, he listened raptly as his brother told him all about his life these last years, and the work he was doing with Fiddleford that brought them here.

 

"Isn't it the strangest thing?" Fiddleford mused, stirring cream into his coffee, "Stanley deciding to stay here and play up all the odd occurrences in Gravity Falls caught the attention of Standford, who came all the way out here to verify the truth of it, and found his long-lost twin brother. Sounds like something out of fiction, doesn't it?"

 

Put that way, yeah, it did. But neither Stan cared how far-fetched it sounded. They were together again, by fate or chance, and that was all that mattered.

 

"Too bad it's all a bunch of crock though." Stanley added.

 

"Actually!" Stanford and Fiddleford perked up. "Stanford here has found some strong evidence that this place _is_  an anomalous area! While I doubt the existence of say, something as silly as a bigfoot, there are some strange energy readings all throughout this area that warrant further exploration."

 

"So... you're staying?" Stanley tried not to sound too hopeful.

 

"Looks like it, brother. There's a lot of work to do if my readings are right. I think—" and here he looked around suspiciously and leaned in close to whisper, "I think there might be something to do with a thinned barrier between realities."

 

Stanley leaned back and looked at the two of them to see if they were having him on, but they both remained completely straight-faced.

 

"You know what this whole thing sounds like, right?" he asked.

 

"An adventure?" Stanford replied, something tentatively hopeful in his voice and eyes. Stanley grinned.

 

"Yeah, an adventure."

 

* * *

 

 

After lunch, Ford and Fidds took him out to the woods to the spot where their research facility was being built. While not quite done, Fiddleford had shown him the blueprints and Stanley had to say, he was impressed. Three basement levels, including a lab and a workshop and a library, and somewhat unassuming shack built over top for them to live in, something that'd blend in with the surroundings and not give off the "secret lab built here" vibes.

 

Right now, the two of them were staying at a motel a town over while the waited for construction to finish. Stanley wanted to be able to offer them a place to stay in town, but his own apartment wasn't much to write home about, and the only motel in town was usually full-up with lodgers almost year-round. But he didn't want to let ford out of his sight again, not after just getting him back.  
Ford seemed to feel the same, and assured him that the motel was just to sleep and hold their things, that they'd be spending most of their time here in Gravity Falls. Stanley felt something hard in his heart begin to soften and settle. All this time, all the waiting and wondering and missing and hurting, it looked like it was finally coming to an end.

 

* * *

 

 

Things didn't fall back into the way they used to be, nor did they come smoothly right away—not that Stan expected them to. Neither of them were the same people they were eight years ago, and there were some hiccups in their new relationship. Stan was still the run-away convict who ran a scam shack for a living, (something he was suddenly self-conscious about) and Ford occasionally got so involved in his work that it absorbs all his attention for days on end to the exclusion of all else. It might've been a little touch-and-go, but they found time for each other, trying to make this work.

 

They met up at the diner quite a bit, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Most times Fiddleford came along, but the little guy seemed to have a knack for knowing when the two brothers needed some time together, and when they needed him to tag along as social lubricant.  
Fidds got along with both of them surprisingly well, once the initial weirdness of "you have a secret identical twin" wore off. He was very mechanically-minded and had some good ideas for the shop he shared with Stanley, some stuff about stitching together taxidermies more convincingly, and some neat ideas for glowing crystals and magnetically floating skulls and whatnot. The two of them ended up becoming friends in their own rights, which was nice. Fiddleford didn't seem to have many friends outside of Stanford, too meek and nerdy and shy, and Stanley just didn't have any friends flat, too busy shutting everyone out all the time. It was nice for both of them.

 

It was estimated another couple months before the shack in the woods was to be completed, and in that time, the Fords tried to explain their research to Stanley, but most of it went right over his head. It was a lot of something about a tectonic plates and ley lines, and a thinning of some kind of barrier between realms or realities, the kind of thing that sounds like a lot of bullshit someone might make up to sucker fools out of their money, but apparently it was all very real. Stanley remained skeptical.

 

That is, up until the three of them headed out one afternoon to investigate something locals were calling the "screaming banshee caves" (Stanley's money was on some type of gas leak making a whistle of some kind, but both the Fords insist they had done a lot of geographical research about the area and found no evidence of gas pockets in that location) and get their first glimpse at something _really_  weird.

 

It took them a good couple hours to hike out to where the caves were, something that could've gone faster, but Fidds was a little out of shape, and Stanford kept stopping to sketch things and take notes and samples.  
At around 1:30 in the afternoon they got to their destination, just in time to hear a _godawful_  screech from one of the nearby caves.

 

Fiddleford immediately yelped and hid behind both of them, shaking like a leaf. Stanley was still skeptical that it wasn't some kind of gas or trapped animal or teenagers, and Stanford was too gung-ho about science to let a spooky scream stop him. Fiddleford had a death grip on both of their sleeves and managed to stutter something about danger, but Ford ruffled his hair and gently tugged himself free.

 

"Fidds it'll be _fine_. Me and Stan will go in, you stay here. If anything happens, run back and call for help, okay?"

 

"B-b-b-but—"

 

" _Relax_." Stanley said this time, and pulled out his favourite pair of brass knuckles, slipping them on. "Ain't nothin' gonna get the upper-hand over me."

 

The two brothers left Fiddleford outside the cave, huddled behind a fallen tree and ready to sprint away for help at a moments notice, while the Stans walked up to the cave.

 

"Just like old times, huh?" Ford said, switching on his flashlight.

 

Stan cracked his knuckles and grinned, "You know it."

 

* * *

 

 

The caves were clearly man-made, a handful of them scattered across the cliff face, most likely to connect to the mines below. Near the mouth of it, there was the usual teenage-hangout signs: graffiti, litter, the remains of a campfire. Further in, there were some old signs left behind by the miners, directions to sites, and a large map. Ford shone the light on it and Stan whistled, impressed.

 

"Hell of a big place, huh? I knew there was a dried up mining op here, but I never knew it was this _big_."

 

"We should split up then, cover more ground."

 

"What? _No_. Are you kiddin' me? That's exactly what we _shouldn't_  do, Ford. Have you never seen a horror movie?"

 

Stanford rolled his eyes. "This isn't a horror movie Lee, this is real life, and whatever is in these caves is probably just—"  
Another scream cut off whatever it was he was going to say. This one sounded much closer, but with a fork in the tunnels ahead of them, it was impossible to tell which one it came from. Stanford shone the light back onto the map.

 

"Those tunnels there, they branch off but meet back up again together here." he tapped a large room further in.

 

"Ford, this isn't a good idea." but Stanford was already pulling a second flashlight out of his pack.

 

"If you spot anything, just give me a holler." and Stan couldn't get a word in edge-wise, Ford already headed off down one of the paths, disappearing into the dark.

 

Stanley stood at the fork and cursed. There was only one thing to do now; play along with his idiot-brothers idea and hope that neither of them got killed for it.

 

The tunnels were dark and damp, sloped steeply downwards, and narrowed unexpectedly in a few places, enough that Stan had to turn sideways and shuffle through, getting himself covered in weird cave wall muck in the process. The shape of the place seemed to amplify every noise, making the drips of water off stalactites almost like thunderclaps, and the scurrying of critters just out of his sight terrifying. Those were the only sounds he could hear besides his own breathing and the sound of his steps. Try as he might to strain his ears, he couldn't hear Stanford anymore, or any signs of what was causing the screams.  
He kept going, and the tunnel took a sharp left and then zagged back right and opened up into a large cavern. This must've been what they saw on the map, but this was _huge_ , much larger than he'd pictured. The beam of his flashlight couldn't even illuminate the top of it, which made him wonder; just how far down had he travelled, and where was Ford?

 

 

He turned and shone the light on the wall he came from, trying to find some kind of other exit where Stanford would come from, but the only thing his light hit made his heart fall.  
There, some 40 feet from where his own entrance to the room was, was another door, but this one was caved in. The boulders in front of it were huge and looked like they'd been there for a long while, and jagged stakes of wood poked out here and there. There was no way he could move them or Ford could squeeze through, he'd have to turn around and go back, then come through the way Stanley had.   
Stan was about to head back down his own path and see if he could find his brother when he heard a rustling behind him, an odd sound, leathery, like a bedsheet flapping in the wind. He spun around and shone his light over the room, but the only thing he saw was rocks and old mining equipment.

 

"You're losing your mind, Stan. Keep it together." he muttered to himself. But there it was again, that flapping noise. From... Above?  
Before he could even shine the light up, there was that awful screech again, and something _big_  knocked him right over, sending the flashlight skittering out of his hands.

 

"Ford!" he hollered, " _Stanford!_ "

 

He thought he might have heard a faint "I'm coming!" but whatever it was that knocked him down was coming again, he could hear the flapping. He scrambled for the light and shone it in the direction of the noise. There, in front of him, was something _impossible_.   
Some kind of gigantic bat-creature, bigger than a car, with two large, milky red eyes, a pointed flap of skin for a nose, and a gaping mouth filled with fangs.  
It screamed again and Stan managed to roll out of the way in time to avoid it's claws crashing into him.

 

Hiding behind a rock and scared out of his mind, this time he _definitely_ heard his brother shouting his name, closer now.

 

"Stanford! Don't come in here!" but the furious screeching of the creature drowned him out, and he saw the beam of light from Stanford's flashlight cut around the corner.

 

"Stan— _holy shit!_ " Stanford had come running around the corner too fast to stop, and in his back-pedalling, knocked over a pickaxe that clanged into an overturned minecart. The noise echoed loudly and caught the attention of the giant bat, who turned from trying to scratch Stanley out from behind the rock he'd hidden himself under, and screeched at Stanford.

 

Ford had enough presence of mind to throw himself back into the narrow passage he entered from, and the creature couldn't fit its bulk in after him, scraping and screaming ineffectually at him.

 

"Stan! Stanley! Are you okay?"

 

Stanley used the monsters momentary distraction to scrabble for a safer spot, tucking himself into a dusty alcove and arming himself with an old shovel.

 

"I'm alright!" At his shout, the creature again swung itself in his direction

 

"I think it's blind, it's tracking us by sound!" Ford shouted, and sure enough the bats attention was on him again.

 

"Then why are we yelling?!"

 

"We have to get you out of there! Are there any other exits you can see?"

 

Stan grabbed his flashlight and shone it around the room, observing while the creature was pre-occupied with his brother.   
There were plenty of other exits along the walls, man-sized passages with old, broken signs above them, but from what he remembered of the map, they all went further in, and the last thing he wanted was to get lost down here where there could be even _worse_  things hiding.

Then his flashlight glinted off something shiny high above. There, across the room from where they entered, was a cliff about 50 feet up, a rusted and twisted mine track hanging off the edge. It looked like at some point the whole ledge had collapsed and it was probably still unstable, judging by the loose-looking boulders and precariously hanging heavy equipment.

 

"I have an idea!" he shouted back. He could hear the sounds of his brothers protests, but he knew this would work.

 

Stan felt around and grabbed as many fist-sized rocks and debris that he could, and started pelting the wall below the cliff with them, and sure enough, the sound grabbed the giant bats attention. It took a minute for it to pinpoint the sound, but when it did, it did exactly what Stan thought it would. The bat screamed and rammed itself at the wall. From up top, there was a groaning and a rumbling and a few large rocks tumbled over the edge and hit the bat, enraging it further. It flew back and swooped in again, hitting the wall with it's considerable bulk, and this time there was a noise like thunder and the entire cliff came crashing down, raining large chunks of stone and twisted metal onto the creature, burying it.

 

The collapse kicked up a hell of a lot of dust, and Stan had to cover his face with his shirt to breath. Distantly, he could hear the panicked calls of his brother, and managed to shout back a choked "I'm okay!" Through the heavy dust, he saw the muted beam of light from Fords flashlight and made his way over to it.

 

"Stanley! _Oh thank god_." Ford grabbed him immediately and pulled him stumbling backwards into the narrow passage. "Are you okay? Did it get you? Let me see, _let me see_."

 

Stan had suffered a few scrapes and bruises from the rocks, but he was okay, he just wanted to get the hell out of here. He told his brother as much, and Ford had to agree, grabbing his brothers arm and not letting go until they were out of the cave.

 

"Did you _see_  that?" Stanford asked. Now that the terror of almost dying had worn off, he was _excited_.

 

"Yeah, much closer than I wanted to." Stan bent double and rested his hands on his knees, taking deep gulps of fresh air to clear out the taste of dust and must from his lungs.

 

"Genuine _megafauna!_ Some kind of heavily mutated _desmodontinae_?"

 

"—Looked like a bat to me."

 

"—This should be _impossible_ , do you know what this means?"

 

"That we won't be going back into those caves?"

 

"That I was _right!_ There _is_  something happening here!"

 

Despite having _nearly died_  at the hands (claws?) of a _gigantic mutant bat_  in an abandoned cave, Stanford's enthusiasm and excitement were contagious.  
A little ways away from the cave mouth, a head of messy brown hair popped up from behind a fallen tree; Fiddleford, right where they left him. Fidds took one look at the thick layer of grime and dust on both of them, and the shiny red trails of blood on Stanley, and looked ready to faint dead away.

 

"W-what _happened_  in there? I heard the screaming and I wasn't sure if you were _okay_  and I was going to go get someone but I—I—"

 

Stanford placed a hand on Fiddlefords shoulder, squeezing gently. "We got exactly what we were looking for, Fidds. _Proof_ , proof that Gravity Falls is _exactly_  what we were looking for; somewhere where the very weird is very _real_."

 

* * *

 

 

It took Fiddleford a little while to stop wringing his hands nervously, but the big grins of the Pines twins and the way Stanford couldn't stop going on excitedly about what they'd seen and what this meant for their research slowly calmed him. The trip back to the car took less time, and they were on the road and back to Gravity Falls and Stanley's apartment to see about some first aid and a much needed shower.

 

* * *

 

 

Freshly showered free of grime and dust and with his scrapes patched up, Stanley offered to take their little group out for a well-deserved dinner.

 

Greasy's was surprisingly empty for a 6 o'clock on a Tuesday night, but Stan wasn't complaining, he had forgotten how much of an appetite adventuring worked up. The three of them took a booth in the far corner and Stanford pulled out his notebook and got to work sketching up what they had seen and thinking up possible explanations. Fiddleford, who had since calmed down, was every bit as eager to piece things together.

 

Stanley didn't quite understand a lot of it again—talk of radiation bleed and a thinning of dimensional fabric, allowing holes and portals or something—but every so often, McGucket roped him back in to the conversation to ask his opinion, and Stanford grinned at him, that same excited grin he remembered from when they were kids on an adventure, and Stan felt such _happiness_  well up inside him that he didn't even care about all the technobabble. He could've sat here with his plate of bacon and listened to his brother and his friend talk about gravitational anomalies and paranormal hotspots all night, and that would've been fine with him.

 

* * *

 

 

They didn't stay there quite _all_  night, but what only felt like a handful of hours ended up being right until closing time. Susan apologized for interrupting and gave them their last coffees on the house, but it was midnight then, and time for them to clear out.

 

Stan wished he could've offered them his place to stay for the night, but the only things he had in his cramped apartment were a ratty old recliner and a bed barely big enough for one man. Fiddleford said he was fine to drive, and Stanley waved goodbye to them from the gravel parking lot of Greasy's and watched until the red of their tail-lights was gone in the dark.

 

He decided to walk home that night—it wasn't like his place was far, not in a small town like Gravity Falls, and at some point, their meal had been accompanied by beers and the air would do him good.

 

During those long hours spent talking in the diner, the three of them drew up some plans for more research in one of Fords notebooks, a list using Stanley's knowledge of the area of what would most likely be worth looking into. Now that he had _seen_  something, seen the impossible come to life before his eyes, he was a little less skeptical of all the strange happenings around here. Sure, there were probably still some things that could be chalked up to over-imaginative locals and mischievous teens, but there are a few things he could think of that might be worth checking out.

 

But while the discovery of the unknown and conformation of the weird was certainly something to make a man giddy, Stan was feeling that happy, hopeful mix of feelings for different reasons. Stanley Pines walked down the dimly-lit street in a sleepy little town called Gravity Falls, a little drunk at near 1 in the morning, and he couldn't help but wonder at how the roller coaster of his life took him here. Kicked out and on the run for seven years, settled here by chance for one, meeting up with his estranged twin, the hopeful beginnings of whatever _this_  was shaping up to be... Life has a way of twisting your dreams, but maybe wasn't all bad. It wasn't the sailing and the treasure he had imagined as a child, but this... This could really be something.

 

* * *

 


	5. our new home with its hollow roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things always get better before they get worse

It took another month and a half for the shack to get finished, but Stanley finally got an excited call early one Sunday morning from Stanford, wanting him to come and see it right away.  
The drive wasn't far, the shack only just on the outskirts of town, set a ways back into the forest where it couldn't be seen by prying eyes from the road. There was fencing topped with barbed wire, security cameras, and some official looking signs, but Stan drove past them all and to the deceptively normal looking shack in the woods.  
Both the Fords greeted him out front, Fidds kitted out in a little apron and scribbling some things on boxes on the front porch, and Stanford bringing even more boxes out of a large trailer.

 

 

"You made it!" Fiddleford greeted, "C'mon, the movers did all the heavy lifting but it's still a little bare-bones at the moment. Stanford wants to show you around."

 

 

"The grand tour of the new abode, eh? Not bad lookin'."

 

 

Ford showed him around all the rooms, the bedrooms on the main floor, his office in the attic, the kitchen and living-room setup. There was one thing Stan noticed, or rather, _didn't_ notice, however.

 

 

"Where're the basements?" he knew they were there, he'd seen the blueprints for the three underground floors months ago, but there were no stairs that he could see that went down. Stanford grinned delightedly and lead him back through to one of the bigger rooms, mostly filled with boxes right then, and over to a blank section of wall. He fit a finger under one of the wooden slats and tugged, and a whole door-sized section of panelling swung free to reveal a metal door with a keypad. 

 

 

"Real James Bond of you." Stanley whistled, impressed.

 

 

Stanford input the code—not even bothering to hide it, letting Stanley see it and everything, which surprised Stan—and the doors whooshed open.

 

 

"It's an elevator. McGucket designed it, designted the whole place, actually."   
From behind them, Fiddleford himself walked into the room, wiping his hands on his apron and looking pleased at the mention.

 

 

Stanford and Fiddleford showed him each floor, the workspace with tables and as-of-yet empty shelves on the first level, Fiddlefords workshop below it, already partway filled with gutted computer parts and tools, several long tables with a mess of wires and soldering equipment strewn across them. The bottommost floor was simply 'The Lab', a smaller main room with computers lining every wall, and a larger, mostly empty room beyond it.

 

 

"So what is all this _for_ , exactly?" Stan had asked this before, back when the room they were in was just blueprints and rebar in the cold ground, but he'd gotten the feeling that even  _they_ didn't quite know yet. This time, Fiddleford jumped in with an answer, flicking to life one of the screens on the machines.

 

 

"It's our theory that are other worlds, some like this one, some... Not so much. Worlds in different dimensions that occasionally overlap with our own. Gravity Falls seems to be one such spot; a place where worlds collide. Stanford's theory is that there's a weak spot in the lining of universes that happens to center around this area, a weak spot that occasionally tears and allows things from some other, unfathomable world to slip through. He's of a mind that if we could just _find_  this spot and study it or the things that come through, that we might be able to understand it enough to manipulate it and make a controllable portal, which is where I come in. Think of the possibilities! An alternate dimension where the cure for all our modern vexes and ailments have already been found! A world where everything we know about physics has been flipped on its head! The possibilities are as exciting as they are endless. Stanford here is working on the physics aspect of it, but he brought me along to build the machine we might use to access these other worlds."

 

 

Put this way, it all sounded like something out of a dime-store comic book. Everything Stanley knew about alternate whatsits was from scifi shows. People go through a great cloud in space and wind up in a world where they're all evil, denoted by questionable facial hair. But this, according to both Fords, this was _real_ , a real possibility, and they wanted to be the ones to do it.

 

 

'Infinite possibilities' Fiddleford had said, but Stan was thinking of the practical, of the real and now. If the three of them really _could_ harness some kind of portal between worlds, Stanley could help his brother get the world-wide fame and recognition he deserved and make up for costing him his dream school, and if they were the only three with the know-how to make a doorway to _a whole other world_ , then imagine the _money_  they could rake in.

 

 

Yes, yes this could work nicely.

 

 

Stanford chatted all the way back upstairs, about cataloguing the oddities in the area to help map the bleed and understand what was on the other side, needing to go out and find what was real and what was, as Fiddleford put it, 'hornswoggle'.   
When they made it back to the front room, Stanford and Fiddleford seemed to share a look, and Fidds excused himself to go find something he needed in one of their many unpacked boxes. Stanford turned to his brother.

 

 

"So? What do you think, like the place?"

 

 

"Yeah, you've done well for yourself, really well brother." Privately, Stan was welling with pride.

 

 

"Wanna stay?"

 

 

Stanley started. "What, for real? Like, live with you? Here? At the shack?"

 

 

"Well, yeah. We've got plenty of room and Fidds and I were talking and we agreed it might be nice to have another pair of hands around for this, especially since you seem to know the lay of the land better than either of us, and I mean. It'll be a step up from where you're staying now..."

 

 

Stanley's face shuttered tight. "Oh, so that's what this is then? Charity for your poor, useless brother?"

 

 

"Stanley—"

 

 

"Because I don't _need_  your help, I'm doing just fine on my own—"

 

 

"Stanley would you just _shut up_  and _listen_  for a second?!"

 

 

Stan closed his mouth but crossed his arms and frowned, made it as clear as he could that he wasn't impressed.

 

 

"That wasn't what I meant, it came out wrong. I _know_  you're doing well for yourself here, hell, everybody in town _loves_  you and you obviously love it here too. I just meant..." Stanford ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "It's been _so long_  since I've seen you and these last couple of months have been so... So _good_. Being out with you again has brought back a spark that's been missing since the day you left. I wanted to, I dont know, start over. Catch up on all those adventures we've missed."

 

 

Stan was quiet for a few moments, processing this. "And Fiddleford? He's okay with this?"

 

 

"Well technically the house is mine, but I talked to him and yeah, he's okay with it. He likes you, don't know _why_..." Ford joked, punching his brothers shoulder lightly. Stan grinned and punched him back.

 

 

"So, what do you say, brother?"

 

 

Stan thought for a minute before deciding. "Yes. Yeah. I'll stay."

 

 

Ford grinned and threw himself at his brother, swooping him up in a hug and hollering over his shoulder "Fidds! He said yes!"

 

 

Fiddleford appeared around the corner a minute later with a box in his arms and a fond grin for both of them. "I _told_  you not to worry so much, Stanford."  
The twins grinned and roped Fiddleford into the hug, pinning him between them. Everything was falling into place _wonderfully_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It didn't take much time for them to move Stan's meagre belongings into his new room. Most of what he owned was items for the tent, and a few second-hand bits of furniture. The timing couldn't've been better either, because it was nearing the middle of December and the shack was fully insulated and had a brand new furnace, whereas his old apartment was drafty at the best of times with a heater that quit more often than it worked.

 

 

Another big trailer came a few days later, this one filled with more books and supplies that the three of them got to unloading. It wasn't tough work per se, but it was a fair bit of heavy lifting up and down stairs, so they decide to order in that night.

The main gate to the driveway came with two separate locks on it that need to be opened before anyone could get in, so someone had to go down the road and wait for the pizza there. Stanford offered to go, wanting to get out of the stuffy house for a bit, and Fiddleford tagged along with him.

 

 

Stanley stayed behind to clear off a spot at the table and wound up sitting down for a bit and rifling through a box labelled 'LIBRARY' in neat, blocky letters. It was a lot of books about theoretical physics mostly, real advanced, dry stuff he couldn't quite wrap his head around but gave a try anyways. The first few books were compilation journals with articles from a bunch of different scientists on one central subject. It was then that he noticed the names on some of them, 'S. Pines, PhD', and further back, entire books with his brothers name on them. Stan smiled, proud. Ford may not have gotten into that dream school, but his brother was still a genius through-and-through. But seeing his brothers name on these books was bittersweet, a reminder of just how much he'd missed, and how much he didn't know.

 

 

Pizza came as a much-needed distraction and break. The Stans ordered it with everything on it, just the way they always liked it, and Lee watched amused as Fidds picked off nearly half the toppings and deposited them on Fords plate like this was a common occurrence.

 

 

After they'd all eaten their first slices, Ford started up a conversation about what they should go after next.

 

 

"Something less dangerous, for certain." Fidds said, and both Stans agreed. "What do you think, Lee? You've got your ear to the ground here better than we do, any suggestions?"

 

 

Stanley mulled it over while chewing on his third slice.

 

 

"Well, the lumberjacks around her have been swearing up and down that there's something out in the woods called the 'hide-behind', some kind of shadowy creature that can contort itself easily so it can, well, hide behind anything. Supposedly it stalks the lumberjacks and finds one that's alone to captures him to feast on their intestines."

 

 

Fidds went a little green around the gills, "I thought we agreed on something _less_  dangerous."

 

 

"Well according to the lumberjacks, the thing can't stand alcohol. You just gotta carry a little with you and it won't cart you off. And besides, all the stories say it only goes after lone wanderers in the woods and there's three of us."   
Fiddleford still looked entirely unconvinced, but Stanford eagerly drew up a game plan.

 

 

Over the next few days, they did everything from interviewing lumberjacks to setting traps and traipsing about the woods to look for this creature. They came up with a whole lot of nothing, at least regarding the hide-behind. Stanford still religiously took down as many details as he could—about this and whatever else he found interesting. He'd already managed to fill a couple notebooks full, and over dinner one night brought up the idea of starting proper journals, since there was so much weirdness he wanted to catalogue.

 

 

While what they initially set out to look for never showed itself, they found a lot of other impossible things out in the woods, so it was hardly a waste of time.

 

 

There was a _giant eyeball_  in the lake, a real, human-like _giant eyeball_  they bumped into with their canoe while trying to get to the lakes island one foggy morning.  
The eye didn't look like any known animal from the area, or any animal _at all._  Fiddleford scoured every bit of eye-related research he could get his hands on and concluded that the thing it most closely resemble was _human_ , but much, _much_  larger.

 

 

After their first incursion into the woods on foot, they'd invested in three ATV's to make the journeys quicker, and they came in handy for towing the eye back to the shack.

It was squishy, slimy, slippery, and _stank_. Getting it into the house was a chore, the Stans doing most of the lifting—well, more like _dragging,_ tugging it alongon a tarp to try to minimize mess. It was so big that they had to send Fidds and Ford down in the elevator first, and then the eye down alone because there was no room for anyone in there with it.

 

 

They took it down to the lab where Fidds and Ford could get a good look at it, the heavy stink of it hanging in the air all over the house, like fishy lake water and the beginnings of rot.

 

 

There wasn't much for Stanley to do but sit back and watch while the Fords practically creamed their collective pants over this, measuring, weighing, and sketching, snapping pics and jotting down stats. Judging by the rate of decay and all the bitemarks from hungry fish on it, it'd been about a day and a half old. Stanley left right around the time the two of them busted out the scalpels to begin their dissection, and headed back upstairs to open all the windows and air the awful smell out of the place.

 

 

* * *

 

 

While they never found out what exactly the eye came from, the discovery marked the beginning of many more.

 

 

Some of their adventures were no less fraught than their first escapade into giant bat territory, but now that they knew the potential for danger out there, they set out more prepared.

 

 

The following few months found them with a steadily growing collection of the unexplained; ghosts, zombies, flying skulls, a sinister monster made of candy and rage, a sentient mutated bear, fairies and pixies, water nymphs and mermaids, even a society of gnomes and a shape-shifter.

 

 

Stanford filled enough notebooks with detailed descriptions of their findings to start a small library, but kept the most important ones in three leather-bound journals that were slowly becoming his obsession.

 

 

All of them were overjoyed about everything they'd found, but for different reasons. Stanford and Fiddleford saw concrete proof that their research was actually valid and not crazy, but Stanley took one look around at all they'd amassed and saw dollar signs dancing before his eyes.

 

 

Stan's time was split between adventuring with the research team and the tent, and while he was still making a good income with the things he's made, all he could imagine was how much _more_  he'd be able to make with something _real_. A tiny talking gnome on display, real and alive. The shape-shifter in a glass tank and the flying eyes in a cage. When he brought it up at dinner though, Stanford was staunchly against it.

 

 

"But _why_? Think of all the money we could bring in!"

 

 

"We don't _need_  money, Lee!"

 

 

" _You_  might not, with your fancy grants and government bonds, but _some_  of us have bills to pay!"

 

 

"Stanley, if word gets out that there are actual, _real_ unexplained paranormal and supernatural beings here in these woods, other researchers will come and McGucket and i will lose our exclusivity, our grants, our _jobs_. I won't have my research taken from me Stanley. Don't ruin this for me too, not again."

 

 

It was a cheap shot, a stab right into the heart. Stanley stopped dead, a stricken look on his face. Fiddleford at his spot at the table was wringing his hands nervously, obviously looking for a way to quietly escape. There was history here that he didn't know about, but he could feel the tension in the air, see the devastated look on Lee's face, the regret on Ford's. The rawness didn't last long. Stan shuttered his emotions away and went stony and cold.

 

 

"Fine. okay. I'm sorry I brought it up. You keep your precious research hidden to yourselves, I don't need it anyways. I'm doing just fine on my own. I'll see myself out and try not to _ruin_  anything on my way to the door."

Stan's chair made an awful scraping noise when he stood, and he headed for the front room. He had his coat in one hand and the doorknob in the other by the time Stanford caught up.

 

 

"Stanley, please. Wait, stop! That came out wrong, I didn't—"

 

 

Lee slammed the door and was gone.   
Stanford watched helplessly from the window as his brothers car peeled off down the driveway, and felt Fiddleford's nervous energy come to a stop beside him.

 

 

"Are things... Will he be okay?"

 

 

Stanford sighed. "He just needs some time. And I was. Kind of an asshole."

 

 

Fiddleford shifted awkwardly, "You said 'not again'..."

 

 

"A story for another time." he sighed again and turned away from the window. I'm going to turn in early."

 

 

In his room in the shack, Stanford lay in bed and wondered when he would stop fucking things up with his brother, if things will ever be as smooth as they were when they were kids.  
Across town in a sleeping bag at his trailer, Stanley wondered the same thing.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sounds of plane crashing*


	6. stare into the mirror and get a good look at your sins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of the end

Stan waited a couple days for the air to clear before slinking back to the shack one afternoon. Mostly, his back was killing him from lying on the floor, but he also needed to see how badly things had been broken between he and his brother, and if he needed to start looking for a new place again.

 

 

It was Fiddleford who greeted him at the door, looking relieved to see him.

 

 

"Stanford just stepped out for groceries and a stop by at the post office, but come in, come in! We've missed you, and I was just about to sit down for a spot of lunch."

 

 

Stanley stepped in cautiously like he was expecting Stanford to pop out at any minute and cast him back out. Fiddleford chattered away, filling the silence while he fixed them both up a sandwich and some sweet tea, pausing only to take a bite.

 

 

"So, uh. How mad is he?"

 

 

Fiddleford blinked. "Mad? Stanford's not mad."

 

 

"Of course he is, he has to be. I'm the moron who's probably going to ruin everything. Again." Stan grumbled and pushed bits of his sandwich around on his plate. Fiddlefords face softened.

 

 

"Oh Stanley, Ford really isn't mad, not at you. He's mad at himself for speaking so harshly and regretting what he said, but he's not mad at you. He's been fretting himself silly waiting for you to come back, you know. Always checking the window for your car. I told him to just _call_   you, but he's so stubborn and a little bad at using his words, which I see are familial traits." Fiddleford said, not unkindly.

 

 

Stan blushed a little and asked quietly, "So he's not gonna kick me out?"

 

 

"Heavens no! Stanford _loves_  you. I've known him for _years_ now, and this last little while here with you in Gravity Falls, this is the happiest I've ever seen him. He was worried _you_  were too mad at _him_ to want to come back." Fidds paused, took a delicate sip of his sweet tea, "Well, are you?"

 

 

Stanford shuffled his feet and rubbed at his neck. He wanted to, _really_ wanted to. Doing things at the shack, being with his brother, the friendship he built with McGucket, not to mention that he'd come to really think of it—both the shack and Gravity Falls—as home... Strange to think that just last night he had been contemplating running away again, over an apparent miscommunication.

 

 

"I'll stay." he said, and Fiddleford seemed genuinely pleased, even reached across the table to pat Stan's hand.

 

 

Shortly after, having both finished their lunches and now amicably chatting, they heard a car pull up and the sounds of someone coming into the house.  
Stanford stood at the door to the kitchen, hair looking a little wild like he'd run the whole way there, but he must've seen something in the pleased smile on Fidds' face and the hopeful one on Stanley's, because some invisible weight slid off his shoulder and he sighed, relieved.

 

 

"Hey, brother."

 

 

"Hey. Fidds was just telling me you guys planned on going out into the woods today. Need a hand?"

 

 

And that was that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Fiddleford must've had a talk with Stanford not long after, because the air cleared a lot faster than if it'd been just the two brothers patching things up. Fiddleford seemed to know both of them eerily well and always knew just what to say to get the ball rolling between them again.

 

 

Mystery hunting resumed as if there'd never even been a pause, and life went on. The locals had started referring to the house as 'the Mystery Shack', and the name stuck.  
They had another solid year of adventures—cyclopses, ents, banshees, a cult of vampires, a body-swapping carpet, and dozens more oddities—before things started to slow down.

 

 

Stanford said he had collected enough data to accurately predict what was on the other side, and now they had to get to work making the machine that would allow them to punch through.

 

 

Days and nights of adventures turned into long hours spent in the lab, Stanley helping with the heavy lifting of sheets of metal and thick cables of wire. The Fords disappeared for long hours in the library and Fiddlefords workshop, absorbed in the journals and sketching up ideas for the final machine, estimating power draw and size dimensions, running simulations and safety checks.  
While Stanley might not've been on the level of genius those two were, he had picked up quite a bit in their year plus of living and working together, but this, this was still beyond his ken. The more days that went by, the more Stanford and Fiddleford stayed locked in their labs, completely absorbed in their work to the point of shunning all else. There wasn't much for Stanley to do except help when he was needed, lifting and fetching, making sure they remembered to eat, taking care of the house and his work at the tent.

 

 

There were long months of this, Stan watching them work late into the night, heading to bed and sleeping until the afternoon, only to find both Fords were still down in the basements working, having not slept a wink. They were throwing everything they had into the design and perfection of this machine and idea, every scrap of their not-inconsiderable combined brainpower went into this.

The design for the portal had long since been finalized, simulations run, power acquired, but something wasn't _working_. Frustration set the team on edge. Even Fiddleford, the least-confrontational man Stanley had ever met, was tired and snappish.

 

 

Things all came to a head one late night when they tried to work the machine again, only to have it get _so close_ and then fail. Fiddleford went over the feedback and logs from the computers trying to find something, _anything_  that would tell them what they were doing wrong, but Stanford had had it with frustration and slammed his way out, stomping off into the dark woods. This wasn't the first time he'd needed to go on a walk in the woods to clear his head, but it was certainly the longest.

 

 

Two full _days_  went by, Stanley and Fiddleford worried sick out of their minds and calling everyone they knew to keep a look out for Ford, pacing the woods and the town, on the verge of calling in the police.

 

 

Stanford came back unexpectedly then, late morning and looking like he'd been gone _much_  longer than just two days. There was something off about him, a full beard, tattered clothes, bags under his wild eyes. He brushed past them and into the elevator, muttering to himself about an epiphany he had in the woods. When the other two tried to ask him about it, he just barked orders at them to prime the machine for running and started scribbling something in one of his journals, only this time, he wouldn't tell either of them what it was. Stan thought he might've seen some kind of rough sketch of a triangle with an eye, a splash of red ink that formed the word 'DANGEROUS', but it was hard to say.

 

 

It took a few hours, but the machine was up and running, whirring and pulsing light, painting their faces harsh red tones. Stanford shoved McGucket aside, ignoring his squawk of 'hey!' and rewrote an entire section of code and parameters on one of the computers, not bothering to tell either of them what it was, just assuring them that "it will work! It has to!"

 

 

Lee and Fidds exchanged worried glances, but let him work.

 

 

In the main room, Fiddleford and Stanley finished setting up, double checking wires, plugging things in, making sure the computers were ready to take readings. They were done by the time Stanford joined them.

 

 

"Are we ready? It's going to work this time, I know it."

 

 

"Stanford, what—"

 

 

"Go! Get ready to pull the lever."

 

 

Stanley stood back and watched the scientists begin the startup sequence. Things started out the same as they had every other time they tried this, but at the point where before the machine would begin inexplicably powering down, this time it began to whirl faster, fizzing sparks and humming at an increasingly high frequency. Bolts of coloured lightning sparked across the portal edges, coming faster and faster until it was too quick to see, too blinding to stare at. And then something _truly_  odd began to happen; gravity itself seemed to just. Stop. Boxes, crates, and tools slowly started to lift off the ground. Stanley was safe behind in the other room, but Stanford and Fidds were trapped in the main room. Stanley watched helplessly as his brother clung to a control panel, but McGucket was near the middle of the room, nothing to grab onto, and it became clear that whatever was causing the gravity to fail, was also pulling everything _towards_  the portal.

 

 

It was chaos. The power it was drawing was too much and the lights died out, even the emergency backup lights flickered dangerously. Something, maybe the machine, maybe the portal it contained, was causing increasingly strong tremors, the whole room shaking dangerously, a crack forming up the far wall.

 

 

"Stanley! Shut it down!" Fiddleford begged, floating slowly towards the crackling opening, scrambling desperately for something to grab onto, anything.

 

 

"No! Wait!" Stanford stopped him.

Stanley had no idea what to do. They didn't even know if whatever was on the other side was _safe_ , the original plan having been to send one of McGuckets robots through to take a peek at what was on the other side and record some readings. Now he was forced to watch helplessly as his brother kicked off the wall, spiralling towards the centre of the room and latching onto a lever, swiping a coil of rope nearby and tossing the end at Fiddleford. It was close, but it wasn't going to make it. The Pines brothers watched in terror as Fiddleford's head slipped through, then his shoulders, then his flailing arms. The rope reached him then, coiling around his leg, and Stanford yanked as hard as he could, pulling Fiddleford back.

 

 

"Now, Stanley! Shut it down _now_!" and Stan slammed the emergency stop.

 

 

A lot of things happened at once. The portal _exploded_  in a flash of blinding light and a deafening noise loud enough to send Stan's ears ringing. Gravity resumed as normal and all the heavy floating crates and tools slammed back into the ground at once. He heard shouting, Stanford calling Fiddleford's name, and Stan all but tore the door to the lab open in his haste to get in.

 

 

Fiddleford was twitching on the floor, eyes huge and pupils blown, looking like he was in the middle of a seizure. Stanford was leaning over him, tearing his jacket off to put under Fidds' head and trying to keep him stable and check him over. By the time Stanley hurdled all the scattered debris to get to them, Fiddleford was saying something, some kind of odd nonsense that didn't sound human. Then he sat bolt upright suddenly, nearly knocking into both Stans' heads. Fidds spoke then, voice monotone and eyes far away, something eerie and ominous.

 

 

"When gravity falls and earth becomes sky, fear the beast with just one eye."

 

 

Stanford looked terrified, white as a sheet. He reached out for Fiddleford, but Fidds jerked away.

 

 

"Stanford!" he said, voice shaky but sounding like his own again, "We have to destroy this!"

 

 

"What?! No, we can't destroy this, this is my life's work, we've come _so close_ —"

 

 

Fiddleford spun suddenly and lunged at Stanford, one arm hanging limply at his side, the other in a death grip on his shoulder.

 

 

"This machine is dangerous, moreso than we ever knew! We have to destroy it, we _must_ , before it brings about the end times!"

 

 

"Fiddleford, _please_ , you're not making any sense!"

 

 

Fidds slumped then, cradling what looked to be a broken arm to his chest.

 

 

"We've done something terrible, Stanford, meddled in what we ought not to've and unleashed something dangerous, something I'd soon as just forget. I quit, and you should too." He struggled to his feet then, Stanley reaching out to help steady him and guide him over the debris to the door. They paused then, looking back to Stanford. He was still on the ground, kneeling in the dust, illuminated by nothing but the gently pulsing emergency lights and the eerie blueish glow of the now inactive portal. He didn't look up at them.

 

 

Stanley had no idea what to do, but Fidds was stumbling and leaning heavily on him, exhausted and shaking, banged up and in need of a doctor, so that's what Stan did, took Fidds to the hospital, and left the broken mess of his brother kneeling in the dust.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

After a few hours at the hospital getting Fiddleford patched up (and some BS story about being attacked by a bear) they drove home. The exhaustion from the days events combined with the pain killers had knocked Fiddleford right out, and Stanley carried him to his room, leaving a glass of water and the rest of the pain killers on the bedside table, and then went to look for his brother.

 

 

The lab was still a mess, severed cables sparking dangerously, boxes and their contents strewn about, cracks in the walls and fallen support beams. Stan found his brother not in the basement levels, but up in the attic room. Stanford had spent more and more time up here over the last few months, but being his personal workspace, no one else had bothered to come up. Stan almost wished he had, maybe he would've seen all this coming sooner.

 

 

The place was a mess, books and sheafs of paper everywhere, blackboards nailed to the sloping walls and covered in indecipherable scribbles, a wall with some kind of hieroglyphs and their translations, writings on the walls and sigils on the floor in what looked to be old  _blood_. It was the room of a mad-man. Stanford was there, hunched over his desk under the window, scribbling furiously in one of his journals and muttering to himself. How had Stanley not noticed any of this sooner?  
He stood at the doorway and cleared his throat.

 

 

"Fiddleford is back. He's got a broken arm and some—" Stanford whirled around, eyes wide.

 

 

"Is he ready to talk?"

 

 

"What? No. He's passed out, and don't you think he's been through enough? Give him some _time_  for gods-sakes."

 

 

"We don't _have_  time, Stanley! I need to know what he _saw_  on the other side!"

 

 

"Stanford, listen to yourself! You're not acting right, you need a break from all this nonsense—"

 

 

"Nonsense? _Nonsense!?_  That's what you're calling my life's work now, _nonsense?_  It wasn't enough for you to ruin _everything_ that day, but now you're here trying to _stop me_? No, get out."

 

 

"Stanford, _please,_ listen to yourself! You're not acting right, you're—"

 

 

" _Get. Out!_ " Ford bellowed, hurling the nearest object—a heavy book—at Stanley. Stan did as he was told and left, closing the door behind him. He was shocked and terrified, at a loss for words and ideas. Ever since those nights Ford had spent alone in the woods, he'd been... Different. Not himself. Wrong.

 

 

Not knowing what else to do, Stan grabbed his pillows and blankets and took them to Fiddlefords room, sure he'd need to be there to keep Stanford from interrogating him later, and tried to sleep.

 

 

* * *

 


	7. rock bottom and dig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where it all goes to shit

The following weeks were a nightmare.

 

 

Fiddleford was different. Whatever it was that he had seen or that'd happened to him on the other side of that portal had broken his mind, and Lee had to keep with him at almost all hours to make sure he was okay. He stopped eating, refusing anything until Stan had to sit him down and _make_ him, hand-feeding him spoonfuls of soup. Being alone or alone with Stanford caused him to _scream_  and go into a blind panic, gibbering and whimpering for hours about demons and eyes inside triangles, about the end times and needing to forget. Stan would sit with him and try to calm him and Fiddleford would claw at him, clinging to his shirt. With nothing else to do and no idea how to help, Stan sat with him and rock him until he was calm.

 

 

He became obsessed with forgetting, terrified of the lab and of Stanford, he'd take too many of his pain pills and pass out. He wouldn't go back to see the doctors, either. When time came to get the cast removed, Fiddleford went out to the shed and did it himself, sawed it off and nearly took his arm with it.

 

 

After that, he wanted to be alone. Locked in his room for days at a time, only opening up every so often to take the food Stanley left. Stan caught glimpses of something, blueprints pinned to the walls, something that looked like the ones he'd seen of the lab before it was built so long ago. How could the three of them from back then—so eager and happy, hopeful and excited—get to where they were now? Two secretive and broken shells of men, and Stanley caught in between, not knowing what to do.

 

 

Stanford's insane obsession with the portal reached a dangerous peak. At quiet times when he was up in his attic room, Stanley could hear him raving to himself, moving things around, thuds and bangs. It was almost like he was talking to someone else, having arguments and fights, but there was no one in the house but the three of them, and even that didn't seem like it'd last. Stan was sure of what he'd seen now in Fiddleford's room; blueprints for some kind of fallout shelter, and something that looked suspiciously like designs for some kind of gun. He was proven right when Fidds moved out the next month, not even having bothered to tell him he was leaving until the day of.

 

 

Stan still saw him around town after that, but he was a little more different every time. His once thick brown hair had begun to grey and thin, his clean-shaven face was now thickly bearded. He walked everywhere in dirty clothes with a heavy hunch and eyes darting about like he was waiting to be attacked.  
A few weeks after he had left, Stan spotted him and the convenience store and called to him, but McGucket seemed to genuinely not remember him. In fact, he didn't seem to really remember _anything_ , not even who he was. When Stanley had called him by his name, Fidds had repeated it under his breath a few times, looking confused. When it clicked, he seemed frightened and ran away.

 

 

Stan felt like crying, like throwing up, like destroying everything around him. How was this happening? And  _why_? Everything in his life had been going _so well_ , he had a job and a home and a friend and his brother, a good life worth living. Now, half-dressed in the middle of a convenience store with gentle muzak playing over the speakers, he realized just how shambled his life had become, all because of that goddamned portal.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stan broke the speed limit driving back to the shack. He needed to put a stop to this, get his life together, his brother back, and fix McGucket, 'research and life's work' be damned. It wasn't worth this, it wasn't worth watching his brother recede into madness and his only friend turn into a frightened and confused shell. He'd spent the last long while since the portal incident in a stunned and confused daze, but now things were clear: Fiddleford was right; the portal was dangerous and needed to be destroyed.

 

 

Stanley didn't even bother closing the door in his haste to get into the house. He had to find Stanford and put an end to all this. Ford wasn't anywhere on the first or second floor, so Stanley raced up to the attic and broke down the locked door. Inside was worse than the last time he had been there. All mentions of logical, real-world things—all the physics books and machine designs, the university awards and family photos—were replaced with hastily scribbled drawings of a yellow triangle with a red circle in the middle.

 

 

The room looked like a tornado had gone through, scraps of paper everywhere. Stan plucked one from where it was stabbed into the wall with a knife and read it. It was part of a newspaper, yesterdays to be exact. Red and black ink, still fresh enough to be tacky was spilled across the front.

 

 

"THE PORTAL WILL WORK. THE DOOR WILL OPEN. IT IS READY."

 

 

Stan dropped the paper and ran.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He wasn't even halfway down the stairs when the whole building began to rumble and shake, pictures and dishes rattling and shattering, lights flickering wildly. The elevator only made it halfway down before it shorted out, caught between the first and second basement levels. Stan punched out roof panel and shimmied the rest of the way down to the basement via the shaft's ladder, clinging desperately every time the walls shook.

 

 

He pried apart the basement doors just in time to see Stanford slowly push the lever to increase the portals power-draw.

 

 

"Stanford! _Stop_ , you have to _stop_ , you'll kill us all!"

 

 

Stanford looked right at him, but kept pushing the lever, face a mess of tears and desperation.

 

 

"I have to Stan, you don't understand."

 

 

"Brother, _please_!"

 

 

Stanley shoved the doors the last few inches he needed to fit through, and ran for the emergency stop button. But it wasn't there. Stanford must've foreseen him trying to stop this, because the button had been completely removed and the wires cut. Stanley turned to his brother, rage and confusion on his face.

 

 

"What have you _done,_  brother?"

 

 

Stanford looked _terrified_. "I made a deal. I have to do it, I made a deal." He didn't seem to be all there or entirely aware of what he was doing, just repeating something about a deal under his breath, ignoring any of Stanley's further attempts to talk to him.

 

 

The glass observation wall cracked, drawing their attention. The room on the other side was a riot of colour, the portal different then it had been any other time. This time it was a rapidly swirling mass of reds, yellows, and blues, sparking thunderbolts and debris whirling around in zero g.

 

 

Stanley's eyes settled on the emergency stop in the other room; a panel with three keys, one for each of them, that could be turned to sever the power supply. Stanford must've known he was going to try and run for it, because he lunged at Lee, trying to tackle him, but Stanley was bigger with more experience at fighting and shoved him off.  
He made a break for it, dodging floating chunks of rock and stabs of lighting, all while trying to keep his balance between the tremors and the lack of gravity, but when he got there, one of the keys was missing.

 

 

"I have to do this, Stan!" Stanley held onto the panel to avoid being sucked into the portal, and turned to his brother. There, around his neck, was the final shutdown key. How could he have missed it?

 

 

"No, Stanford, this has to stop! Look around you, can't you see what this is doing?"

 

 

"You don't _understand_  Lee! I made a _deal_! He said he was going to fix it, to fix everything. It'd be you and me again, everything would be okay, the door just has to stay open a little longer."

 

 

Stanley wanted to ask what the hell Ford was talking about, this nonsense about a deal and just who the hell 'he' was, but a powerful quake hit then, knocking a chunk of roof off and sending Ford scrambling to get away to avoid being crushed. But there was nothing else for him to grab on to, nothing to push off of, and he was dragged towards the portal. Stanley screamed and looked about for something to _do_. He wasn't going to lose his brother to this madness, nor have him dip into the portal and turn into the shell that McGucket had.

 

 

"Stan! Stanley! _Help me_!"

 

 

"Ford, I don't know what to do! Tell me what to do!"

 

 

There was a thick coil not far from Stanley, one he knew to contain dozens of wires inside, each providing power for the machine. To his left and above the shutoff panel, was the emergency fire equipment, glass already broken and axe just hanging there, waiting for him to grab it. Axe in hand, he kicked off the wall as hard as he could towards the power coil, ready to cleave it in two. He could hear Stanford still screaming and looked up. He wasn't going to make it. Fords legs were already through, and the rest of him was rapidly passing after. Ford reached for something then, tucking his hand inside his jacket and pulling out something red and gold—one of those _damn journals_ —and flung it as hard as he could right at Stanley.

 

 

And then he was gone.

 

 

Stan watched in horror as his brothers hand slipped through the portal, the last of him gone from sight. Something happened then, the portal warping and stretching, turning into a blinding golden-yellow triangle with a red dot at the centre. This was bad, Stan didn't understand all the portal talk and technical aspects yet, but whatever this was, he knew it was _bad_.  
He reached the coil then, axe in hand, and _swung_ , hard as he could to cut through the casing. An electrical explosion from it sent him flying back across the room, temporarily blinded. The portal fizzled and _screamed_ , a demonic-sounded hiss of pain, and more of those words like McGucket had spoken when he first came back from his trip though. There was a thunderously loud crack, the sound of one of the corners of the machine splitting clean off, followed by the dwindling hum and scream of the portal shutting down as the power was drained from it.

 

 

There was more debris hanging in the air than last time, and Stan had the presence of mind to crawl his way under a panel to protect himself. Just in time too, because once the portal winked out, everything hung in the air for a moment of suspense, and then came crashing down. Chunks of concrete, tools, live wires crackling and spitting, even the wrenching sound of metal twisting and shearing as half the machine slid to the ground, broken. The silence afterwards was almost as deafening as all the noise that had preceded it.

 

 

Concrete dust hung heavy in the air, illuminated oddly by the glow of the backup lights. The only sounds were the plinking of pebbles hitting the ground, zaps from live wires, and the occasional groan of the buildings foundation re-settling after the quakes. Stanley called out for his brother, but silence was his reply.

There was nothing, he was alone.

 

* * *

 

 


	8. and history will repeat

Stan spent the next however-long (days? weeks? months? he had no idea anymore) wandering through life aimlessly, living in a fog. The people of the Falls had tried to ask him about the strange earthquakes, about the weirdness with McGucket, about Stanford, but he told them he had no idea, something that wasn't entirely a lie; he really did have no idea what happened.

 

 

He felt in a daze, in shock, like everything was just a bad dream and he'd wake up any time now, back to a world where his brother and his only friend never went insane, a world where he didn't have to live with the memory of watching his brothers terrified face disappear into a swirling mass of energy.

 

 

But he didn't wake up. Life went on. He saw McGucket sometimes, but McGucket didn't see him. His hair was mostly gone now, except for his beard, and it was all prematurely white. His teeth were gone, so was the pudge of his life spent at a chair. He looked rickety and old, like a stranger Stan had never met, rummaging through garbage and talking to himself, living in a box behind the grocery store. Stan had tried to talk to him, offer him a place to stay back at that shack and see if maybe he could help him, but any mention of the Mystery Shack or Stanford or even just seeing Stanley's face was enough to sent poor old McGucket into a panic, so Stanley left off.

 

 

He sat alone in the shack after that. Tried to clean up all the broken glass and cracked walls, drank too much and cried himself to sleep only to wake up screaming from nightmares. Life was listless, isolated, and awful.

 

 

Hey stayed stuck like that until letters started coming one day, government ones addressed to Stanford and Fiddleford. They wanted to know how the research was coming along at first, but the more he ignored, the more the letters came. Finally, the last one came, informing him that the grant money was being cut off, and Stanford Pines and Fiddleford McGucket were now jobless. Not that it mattered, seeing as how Fiddleford was a gibbering mess living in the dump, and Stanford was... Gone. Just gone.

 

 

The message of termination was enough to kickstart Stan back into action. He had the vague beginnings of a plan forming in his mind, one to get his brother (and hopefully his friend) back, and for it to work, he'd need the shack and the secrets buried below it.

 

 

So Stanley wrote up his ideas; he was going to fake his own death and assume his brothers identity, thus giving him access to his brothers finances, university records and research information, and then he was going to do the only thing he knew how to make money: rebrand the Tent-O-Weird to the Mystery Shack.

 

 

It took a long while of work to stage his own death and clean the shack up, work that was mostly done on his own. Advertizing it's grand re-opening was easy enough, he'd simply mentioned it to Susan and suddenly people were pouring in, eager to see what weird and wonderful new things he had in store. The mystery surrounding the shack that'd previously been off-limits, the 'death' of Stanley Pines, and the rumours surrounding whatever happened to McGucket all helped add to the image of the Mystery Shack.

 

 

He kept his old promise to Stanford and didn't use anything real, nothing to draw undue suspicion to himself. As far as anyone was concerned, this was a novelty shack selling amusing fakes to bank off the areas local supernatural lore, that was all.  
By day, he made outlandish (but profitable) attractions and ran tours, by night he poured over his brothers research in the labs below, looking for the answers he would need to bring his brother back.

The journals seemed the key—there were three that he knew of, but he only had one of them. At some point in his brothers paranoia, he'd gone and hidden the others and left clues as to where and how to find them, but the clues were convoluted and in a cipher, and finding out which of the _hundreds_  of keys and translations Stanford had was time consuming and next to impossible, but he refused to give up. He would find the journals and scour them for the answers he needed to set things right and bring his brother back, not matter how long it took, no matter if it was the last thing he ever did.

 

 

Stanley Pines, now Stanford, was going to re-open the portal and get his brother back.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK WELL THAT'S ENOUGH OF THAT lmao, time for me to go back to not posting anything for another 2yrs. i have ideas for a sequel, but i don't know if i'll have the energy to ever write it up. honestly, i'm amazed with myself for even managing to get this up and out. just assume canon resumes as normal after this then i guess ahah.  
> if you left a comment or kudos, thank you SO much, it means a lot and i really appreciate it, even if i was too shy to reply to it ♥♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> i am SO sorry ??? idk it' sbeen so long since i've had the energy 2 commit to writing smthn all the way thru, so this fic is all done, it's just a matter of fixin it up (i switch tenses like. a lot.. ah..... if u notice any mistakes u can lmk if u want) and also i guess if anyone actually wants 2 read any more lmao


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